Many binding machines offer either fully or partially disengageable pins as a feature, but what exactly does that mean? Binding machines use a die to punch the hole pattern in your documents, and each pin corresponds to the location of one of the holes. Being able to disengage some or all of the pins means that you can choose to eliminate specific holes from the punch pattern, which can help you to accommodate non-standard document sizes or specialty paper (such as three-hole punched paper).
Binding systems that have fully disengageable pins give you the ability to punch with as many or as few holes as needed for your specific project. In the case of binding machines that have partially disengageable pins, a small number of the pins have the ability to be disengaged, which allows you to prevent select holes (usually the most commonly disengaged holes) from being punched.
Having the option to disengage at least a portion of the pins on your binding machine is extremely useful, especially if you plan on doing specialty projects, like creating calendars with your wire binding machine, or if you frequently utilize an unusual paper size within your organization.